The Huge Opposition to Shocking Laws on Marital Rape

Criminalizing marital rape is a no brainer. There’s no need for even the phrase “marital rape” to exist. We don’t have “marital murder” after all. It’s just murder. The relationship of the victim to the perpetrator is completely irrelevant. Son, daughter, husband, wife…these are all irrelevant. And yet…so many people seem to be against the very concept that a man can rape his wife. Even the government doesn’t think so. They think it’s not “genuine” rape. Why not? The definition of rape is “sex without consent”. How does the marital status enter the equation?

Government's Misplaced Priorities
Government’s Misplaced Priorities

There are a few main lines of argument used against the idea of marital rape. First, that there’s no way to prove that it happened. While it’s true that there can difficulty collecting evidence, this is a red herring. Start by defining the crime, then we’ll think about how it should be proved. As of now, a man can openly claim in public that he violently rapes his wife all the time and the law cannot touch him! That is the problem.

Second, people say that when a woman gets married she agrees to have lifelong sex with her husband. That’s bullshit. A woman is not a personal sex slave. She will have sex with her husband if and when she feels like it. A wife is not a prostitute to whom a man pays money and gets to have sex with whenever he wants. If the man feels that his wife is not sexually active enough, he is more than welcome to sit down with her and talk about the problem and if nothing else works, apply for divorce. If he tries to force himself on her he is a criminal plain and simple regardless of what the shocking laws say. Sometimes the legal system is an ass and deserves to be ridiculed. This is one example.

Third, the government feels that the introduction of marital rape laws will “destroy marriage”. Let me point out that the government has no Constitutional mandate to protect marriage. It does however have the duty to protect the rights of its citizens! Which is more important?

Many are afraid that laws addressing marital rape will be abused by women much like the anti dowry one- section 498A. There is good reason to be concerned about this. But the solution is to have well drafted laws that are less amenable to abuse. Not to forgo the very idea of a legislation itself! We can shift far more of the burden of proof onto the person making the accusation for example because in a marriage, consent is presumed unless stated otherwise. I’m sure there are other legal safeguards we can come up with. But not having a law is unacceptable.

The true motive behind the opposition to marital rape might just be the resistance to a woman’s sexual autonomy. Men and even women are brought up with the idea that marriage is a license to have sex whenever the man wants. And that by refusing it, the woman is not doing her “duty”. Implicit in this line of reasoning is the notion that sex is not something that women enjoy. That they only do it for children and after that they don’t want it anymore. Instituting the idea of marital rape raises the specter of a man going for long periods without sex even though he’s married! I mean what’s the point then, right?

I now understand what the government meant when it said they were “protecting marriage”. What they they’re defending is not marriage per se, but the warped idea of marriage that Indians have. For them, marriage is just a license to have socially accepted sex. Allowing women to say “no” takes that away from them. In the future, they might *gasp* actually have to try and be nice to the woman, make her feel wanted, and be romantic. You can’t treat her like dirt and still exercise a god given right to use her body when you want.

And that sense of entitlement is probably the true reason for this resistance.

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89 thoughts on “The Huge Opposition to Shocking Laws on Marital Rape”

  1. The very concept of “marital rape” is a myth. True, there are “accusations” of marital rape, but every such case has a sordy background behind it. Women who falsely accuse a husband of “marital rape” are doing so to cover up an affair. Pretty much, the sex life of the couple is doomed anyway. It is then easy to frame a husband of marital rape, pack him off to jail without any evidence (see the false dowry cases, 99.6% of them are false) and then live happily with her paramour.

    Sex within a marriage is an implicit and explicit understanding (read the marriage vows in any religion) between the parties. Now making a criminal out of a victim (of infidelity) is society gone mad. Somehow, society is taking sides on behalf of cheaters and infidels, supporting it as a “woman’s choice” and justifying and promoting infidelity.

    If there is real rape and violence, there are many other laws which can be made use of (Domestic Violence Act for eg), but to provide further ammunition to cheating women to further abuse their betrayed husbands is uncalled for.

    Vijay

    Reply

    • In reply to Vijay

      if the law on marital rape was used in this way – i agree. Maybe the law concerning domestic violence if used more extensively would cover the issue of genuine marital rape too… yes we have to be careful about framing laws that may be misused and result in innocent people getting convicted…

      Reply

    • In reply to Vijay

      This is absurd. The act of rape itself has nothing to do with marriage. Who cares if the rapist is the husband?

      You don’t have “marital murder”. No one says that a husband murdering his wife has to be booked under domestic violence laws. So why the hell should rape be treated differently?

      I’d like to know your source for claiming that marital rape never happens. Who made you the judge to say that thousands of women are lying? Where is your proof?

      Reply

      • In reply to bhagwad

        “You don’t have “marital murder”. No one says that a husband murdering his wife has to be booked under domestic violence laws. So why the hell should rape be treated differently?”

        Thats illogical. I’ll explain it, as precisely as I can.
         
        A criminal offence consists of two parts – the consequences of an act that makes it an offence (actus reus); as well as the criminal intent (or awareness) to commit a crime (men’s rea). In a murder, there is always an evidence that the crime happened, there is a dead body. Consequently, if there is no evidence that a dead body exists, one cannot be charged with a murder, much less secure a conviction. Also note that consent in case of a murder does not really absolve one of the offence (although it might *reduce* the culpability under the Indian laws, if consent is equivocal and unambiguous).
         
        Now rape is essentially a crime where the offence is essentially a lack of consent, which is a component that doesn’t leave an objective evidence (unlike a murder). Sex by itself is no crime – it is the lack of consent that makes it an offence and it is considered a rape because ‘she says so’. Even forceful sex which has been reported by eyewitnesses or has been videotaped, is not de facto rape. The element that establishes the culpability is the lack of consent on part of the woman (or women, as the case might be).
         
        Now, making marital rape an offence has never been a debate; the debate over JS Verma Commission’s recommendation on marital rape was the same as world over – is marital rape *enforceable* as a criminal offence? According to Glanville William’s principle of criminal jurisprudence – an act shouldn’t be legislated as an offence unless seven criteria are met – two of which are, that the offence should be enforceable AND that there is a sound reason that it should be legislated into a separate offence and not interpreted into one of the other existing offences. You cannot actually create an offence without dealing with the evidential and procedural aspects, it is legally absurd to make something an offence without considering how that offence would be proved to secure a conviction. It is not for the law to make whimsical moral declarations of ‘what is right and wrong’. Marital rape is a moral offence; for it to be a legal offence, there MUST be a sound legal provision and grounds for its existence as such.
         
        In common law countries which made marital rape an offence, it is considered so ONLY when accompanied by bodily injuries that show that the woman was in fact, non-consenting. Also, according to the laws in many US states, the injuries have to be ‘aggravated’, a mere hickey is not enough. If we take that parameter, marital rape can be interpreted under the provisions of the Domestic Violence Act, assault and battery in the Indian Penal Code, as well as argued as a ground for divorce under ‘cruelty’ provisions.
         
        Also, please note that if a person brags to have committed an offence, he/she CANNOT be arrested unless there is an evidence that the offence took place. This is not exceptional to crimes against women, if I bragged to have killed a man (or a woman), I cannot be arrested unless the police have either a body of the said man OR a missing person report that makes my claim highly likely. This is to prevent arbitrary arrests.
         
        Also note that there are no laws in India that give anyone a ‘legal right’ to quit a marriage if he/she is unhappy. The Hindu Marriage Act, Special Marriage Act and Indian Divorce Act make it quite clear that one can unilaterally petition for a divorce ONLY when they have a justification for one of the specified fault grounds (adultery, cruelty, desertion, etc. which must be PROVED). It is only Muslims and some tribes under ST Gazette that can unilaterally divorce their spouses without a fault ground and without requiring the court’s decree. As per the judgements of the Supreme Court, marriage requires consent but divorce requires *permission*.
         
        For the majority of Indians, marriage is still the de-facto socially sanctioned and legally condoned way to have sex. Plus, the law still expects men to ‘maintain’ their wives financially, at the pain of criminal persecution if they fail to do so. In addition to that – divorce is extremely difficult to obtain – even for men who have been forced to involuntary celibacy for years, after being defrauded and tricked into marrying a frigid woman. It is only recently that lack of sex is recognised as a valid ground for divorce in SOME jurisdictions and even then, it takes at least 15 years to obtain divorce on such a ground. Plus, there is a strong socio-legal sanction against men who try to have sex outside of marriage – thanks to the rather laws that make every sexual indiscretion by a man, a crime (adultery laws, some rather bizarre laws where a man can ‘rape’ a woman if he misrepresents himself as an unmarried man, etc.). While I believe that marital rape SHOULD be declared an offence, it SHOULD also create safeguards for men who might be persecuted unfairly by a vindictive wife AND create adequate and reasonable freedoms for men to deal with a situation where a woman is simply ‘uninterested’ for extended periods of time, while still expecting him to fulfil his part of the bargain in a marriage.
         
        And yes, marriage IS a contract for the majority of Indian people, where men are still expected to provide for their wives as a matter of legal duty. This legal duty extends even after a divorce, in the form of alimony and maintenance payments. Your personal arrangement with your wife is immaterial in context of the prevailing practice in the country and it is absurd to argue for a law based on the marital equation(s) of an insignificant demographic.

        Reply

      • In reply to Akhim Lyngdoh

        What if the husband who raped his wife has an attack of conscience and openly admits to the court that he raped her and there are ample signs of violence, vaginal tears etc? Let’s also say that the whole episode is caught on tape and the man himself puts it up on youtube? Or he did it in front of hundreds of witnesses on stage in public view?

        It’s not enough to be charged with domestic abuse. It’s not enough to be charged with assault and battery. We specifically want the charge of rape to be attached, because that is what happened.

        We all know that related offences exist.

        Where men are still expected to provide for their wives as a matter of legal duty.”

        Citation please.

        “and it is absurd to argue for a law based on the marital equation(s) of an insignificant demographic.”

        Citation please. In fact, it is this precise logic in the case of section 377 that is being criticized the most. It’s one of the most absurd cases of legal reasoning I’ve ever seen.

        We all know that the laws are stupid. Hence the blog post. This is about what the laws should be. We want to move forward, not be stuck with the status quo and be happy.

        Reply

      • In reply to bhagwad

        “What if the husband who raped his wife has an attack of conscience and openly admits to the court that he raped her and there are ample signs of violence, vaginal tears etc?”

        He can plead guilty to the offences of assault, battery, etc. If he rapes his wife in public, he’d be charged with at least six other offences, one of which carries considerably harsher punishment in India, than marital rape does in the UK legal system.
         

        “We specifically want the charge of rape to be attached, because that is what happened.”

        You’ll have to justify it and give jurisprudentially sound reasons WHY marital rape should be treated as a seperate criminal offence, rather than handled as a part of the existing legislated offences which treat sexual violence in marriage with the same gravitas as marital rape is treated in other common law countries. Merely saying “I want XYZ to be ABC” unfortunately, is not what would be considered a logically sound reason.
         

        “Citation please.”

        For someone who rarely ever provides citations for the seemingly authoritative remarks that you make, you do ask for a lot of citations. However, I’ll humour you for now. Refer to Section 18 of the Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act. Then look up the relevant cases for this section, in any standard case book on family laws in India. Also look up the relevant statutes and case laws under S37 of Special Marriage Act (I think) and section 24/section 25 of the Hindu Marriage Act. While the last one does not implicitly put the onus of maintenance provisions on a woman, its gender neutraity is largely disputed, given that courts in India allow a wife to pay maintenance to her husband ONLY if he is absolutely incapable of earning a living (severe physical handicap or mental illnesses, a pretty much impossible situation given that desi women are not even willing to marry a man who has a degree ‘less worthy’ than theirs, much less marry a man who is ‘worth’ less than them in economic terms). The law in India presumes that a man’s rights in marriage is contingent on his ability to provide for the woman, to a lifestyle she was accustomed to before she was married.
         

        “Citation please. In fact, it is this precise logic in the case of section 377 that is being criticized the most. It’s one of the most absurd cases of legal reasoning I’ve ever seen.”

        Not really. For one, as a non-legal person, you are in no position to deduct or judge the validity of legal reasoning – which is overtly dependant on an understanding and awareness of legal principles and jurisprudence – both of which is evidently out of your area of thought or expertise.
         
        Now coming to the issue at hand. You claim that the government is under no constitutional mandate to protect marriage as an institution. If you actually studied the constitution, as a legal professional, you would have understood that the constitution of India authorises the government to ensure that laws are created to uphold public policy and moral institutions. Unfortunately, most laypeople bloggers rarely ever study the laws that they cite, they simply rip off and reword arguments found on other blogs – without actually examining their legal validity.
         
        Marriage is essentially, in conventional terms, a moral institution in the context of both Dharmic and Abrahamic sense of morality. Protecting the institution of marriage, as opposed to communal and civil unions (as practiced in MY society) is also opposed to the public policy of the majority of Indian populace, which abides by the Hindu moral code. Hence, the Hindu Marriage Act is passed, where section 23 makes it binding on both the judicial and legal institutions to protect a marriage from disintegration as far as possible and to make a divorce an *extremely* last resort option (as opposed to the Muslim ‘no fault’ divorce system). In the context of marriage laws in India (with the exception of Muslim and some tribal laws), divorce is NOT a legal right but a legal privilege. Or at least, not a legal right if we go by Salmond’s definition of what a legal right is (Salmond’s Jurisprudence, Oxford).
         
        If marital rape IS recognised as an offence, marriage as an institution will be weakened, for reasons that would be far too wordy and culturally rooted to elaborate here. Just because you live in a context where marriage is not the sine qua non (essential) for having sex doesn’t mean that world is reality for 70% of Indians, who might be penalised one way or the other for even trying to procure sex outside of wedlock. Hence, unless soliciting sex outside of marriage is normalised for this demography AS WELL AS marriage is made less institutional – marital rape legislations will create a lot of offenders without the legitimate mens rea to make rapists out of them.

        Reply

      • In reply to Akhim Lyngdoh

        “WHY marital rape should be treated as a seperate criminal offence”

        Umm..for the same reason that RAPE is treated as a separate criminal offence? Amazing huh? The burden of proof is on you to show why it should not be treated as a separate offence since you can just copy paste the logic for so called “normal” rape. And I’m willing to bet that no such proof is forthcoming.

        In your citations, I’ve yet to see an actual statement that proves your point. So again…citation please.

        “For one, as a non-legal person, you are in no position to deduct or judge the validity of legal reasoning”

        By this logic, only lawyers should ever comment on a court ruling. Despite what you may think, sometimes absurd is absurd. Let’s talk about the merits of the statement instead of talking about who can and cannot comment on a court ruling.

        So again, please explain to me how the SC’s comment on “insignificant minorities” makes any sense.

        “Marriage is essentially, in conventional terms, a moral institution in the context of both Dharmic and Abrahamic sense of morality.”

        Citation please.

        Reply

      • In reply to bhagwad

        “Umm..for the same reason that RAPE is treated as a separate criminal offence? “

        Thats a fallacy. There is no logically sound reason to treat rape as a separate criminal offence. Treating rape as a unique offence is essentially a moral judgement, as rape is nothing more an aggravated form of physical assault. There is no sound logical justification why a sexual assault of a person should be considered more heinous, *special* and more worthy of harsh punishment than say, privation of somebody’s eye or breaking their legs. Also, I find it ironic that in a country where homicide outnumbers rape by a wide margin (NCRB, 2011 stats), an ordinary rape generates far more public outrage than murders of the most brutal kind.
         

        “The burden of proof is on you to show why it should not be treated as a separate offence since you can just copy paste the logic for so called “normal” rape. And I’m willing to bet that no such proof is forthcoming. “

        When it comes to debates you ‘justify’, not ‘prove’ an argument. The contention on marital rape is a debate, not a courtroom trial.
         
        However, assuming that we’re playing advocates, I’d humour you for a while. Since you are the one who ‘alleged’ that marital rape *should* be treated as a separate offence, rather than subject it to the existing penal provisions – the burden of proof is on YOU to back up this ‘allegation’. Try bringing up the proof and you’d see how juvenile your rhetoric is.
         

        “By this logic, only lawyers should ever comment on a court ruling. “

        No. I argued that you don’t have the debating skills or the legal awareness to determine the soundness of reasoning in a legal argument. I didn’t contend your ability to *comment* on a court ruling. There is a very obvious difference between what I contended and what you are trying to imply.
         

        “So again, please explain to me how the SC’s comment on “insignificant minorities” makes any sense.”

        I agreed that its a morally bad argument, from the perspective of the freedom of one’s choice. But the SC judgement was a really solid legal argument.
         

        “Citation please.”

        Try reading the SC ruling in the following cases, if you can understand the legal jargon:
         
        Dastane v. Dastane
        Samar Ghosh v. Jaya Ghosh
         
        A google search for the relevant terms would be easy enough to find these cases. India Kanoon is a good secondary source. In the Samar Ghosh case, the bench stated very explicitly that the presence of fault provisions in HMA section 13 is to ensure that a marriage is institutionalised, on moral grounds. In Mullah’s Hindu Law, THE treatise on Hindu law as applicable in most common law countries – it says that the laws around legitimacy of children is implicated to institutionalise marriage and discourage people to have sex or procreate outside of marriages.

        Reply

      • In reply to Akhim Lyngdoh

        There is no logically sound reason to treat rape as a separate criminal offence.

        So now we come to it! Nevertheless, given that rape IS a separate criminal offence, you have to show me why marital rape is different from “normal” rape. So far, I haven’t seen any such distinction being made. This is hardly surprising since there isn’t any distinction!

        But the SC judgement was a really solid legal argument.

        No it wasn’t. Show me some prior case law that says that the value of rights depends on the number of individuals affected. It’s hardly surprising that in the review petition the government has said that the SC judgment contains some glaring legal errors.

        You also haven’t given any citations to back up your claims regarding marriage being “dharmic” or whatever or to show that a man has a legal duty to support his wife.

        Reply

  2. Bhagdwad,
    Marriage is a contract to start a family. Whether you personally believe it or not.. for the vast..vast majority of the people.. it is to say.. go have sex… have kids.. and raise them. Both parties know this. When one marries, consent for sex is assumed. In your example, When one marries, consent for murder is NOT assumed. Consider the following acts:

    1. Murder: With or without consent is crime.
    2. Sex: With consent is fine and without consent is rape. (Contextual and Subjective)
    3. Bouncing of a check: Crime, if one owes money, but otherwise not a crime. (Contextual and Objective).

    Rape outside marriage is identifiable through circumstantial evidence. The preliminary investigation can be objective and clues mean something.
    Rape in a marriage is very subjective. If someone says: sex we had on Tuesday was OK, but the Wednesday one was rape. hmm.. I know I am trivializing the issue.

    The discussion around this topic is healthy and needed, and most of the objections to the law are not chauvinist, as you assume them to be.

    What cannot be codified cannot be made into law. The debate is on the language and power, not the intent.

    Reply

    • In reply to Murali

      Where is it written in the law that marriage means “go have kids”, “go start a family”? This is not my imagination. The laws are public record. You’re free to view marriage as “have kids”. That’s your choice. That doesn’t mean it’s true.

      You’re talking about evidence of marital rape which is a different issue altogether. What if the man confesses to raping his wife? Then what? According to current laws he can’t be arrested. Defining a crime and collecting evidence for the same are two different things. The law must specify what is right and what is wrong. We’ll handle evidence later.

      Reply

  3. Consent isn’t a one time contract without parameters. When someone gets married, they don’t expect to have sex in front of their in-laws, or while they are sleeping. Consent should be mutual, and agreed upon each time. Just because you had sex last night doesn’t mean you want it tonite. Unless you have lived it, you have no idea. Laws of protection are necessary, even if the danger to abuse the law exists. Most research supports the idea that women rarely make up this kind of abuse. If anything, they take a long time to even realize or become able to verbalize what has happened to them.

    Reply

    • In reply to shar

      I’m all for laws on marital rape placing the burden of proof on the person making the accusation. And yes, consent has to be obtained each time. I think the problem arises because people equate marriage with sex. The two have nothing to do with each other. You can have sex without getting married. And you can get married without having sex.

      Two totally separate issues.

      Reply

    • In reply to shar

      No brain is your problem, Baghwad. The marital contract is this: A man gives up the right to sex outside marriage in exchange for his wife’s agreement to provide sex upon demand. Since a wife has a contractual obligation to screw as the price of her husband’s fidelity, there is, by definition, no such thing as “marital rape”. You might as logically argue that a husband has a duty to support his family – but only if he feels like it. If not, he is entitled to give up working while his wife figures out how to feed the family.

      Baghwad obviously thinks that a husband’s duties are mandatory but a wife’s are merely optional. I have a practical suggestion. If a wife refuses sex for any reason to her husband, the husband shall have the legal right to purchase the services of the most expensive prostitute available – and charge the bill to his wife as her separate obligation. Then wifey may decide that fucking for her husband – as she agreed to when she got married – is cheaper than having a headache. If you don’t like it ladies, try this. Walk the streets as a prostitute for a living. Tell your customers: “I’ll do it for two hundred bucks – but not tonight. I’ll take the money, come back in thirty days time when I’m I a better mood, and then I’ll give you what you have already paid for”.

      You won’t get many customers on that basis – but at least you will have to earn your money – unlike a wife who gets paid for her cunt hole without having to use it.

      Reply

      • In reply to john thames

        “The marital contract is this: A man gives up the right to sex outside marriage in exchange for his wife’s agreement to provide sex upon demand.”

        Wow – amazing that this “law” is not found on any document. Do you do this often? Just make up your own laws whenever you feel like it?

        By the same token, do you even live in the same country as the rest of us?

        “You might as logically argue that a husband has a duty to support his family – but only if he feels like it.”

        Ummm…yes? Who said the husband has a duty to support his family? I certainly don’t support my wife!

        Again, making up your own laws is fine as long as you realize it’s all in your head and has no basis in reality.

        “If a wife refuses sex for any reason to her husband, the husband shall have the legal right to purchase the services of the most expensive prostitute available”

        As long as the wife doesn’t mind, what’s wrong with going to a prostitute? Besides, either party has the legal right to a divorce if they’re not happy. What more do you want?

        Finally, you will please moderate your language on my blog. Or else I will mark you as spam entirely at my own discretion and blacklist your IP address not just for my site, but for the entire blogging community. Be polite and we can continue to talk.

        Reply

      • In reply to bhagwad

        Baghwad:

        You live in a fantasy world, not me. For thousands of years, since the beginning of time, the marital contract has been precisely as I describe it. Kindly consult Judge Matthew Hale who, many centuries ago, wrote the legal standard on the subject. He wrote, and I paraphrase: “A wife hath given her consent when she got married, which consent she may not contract.” You will not understand that a contract is binding on both parties, not just one. If a man is going to share one-half of everything with his wife, he is entitled to something. What he gets these days is a creature who need not fuck, need not clean house and need not cook. This creature demands community property in exchange for services she no longer performs. In other words, a wife is no longer a wife; she is an overpriced girlfriend.

        My analogy with the prostitute was directly on point. The whore must earn her money; the wife need not. This spousal rape nonsense has many parallels in feminist “thought”. They demand equal pay – and then forget equal work while making babies on the company’s time. They join the army and pretend that they can defend their country – and then snivel to Congress that they cannot even defend their cunt from their own troops. A wife, bound by the marital contract, is these days a joke. They want all the benefits of the traditional marriage contract – without any of the traditional obligations.

        I am afraid that, like many men mesmerized by nonsensical arguments, that you have lost your grip on reality. Marital rape is an oxymoron, if ever there were one.

        Reply

      • In reply to john thames

        I have news for you. We’re living in the 21st century in India with a Constitution that was made at independence. We’ve thrown the past out of the window. And good riddance.

        How exactly do “thousands of years” come into the picture? That’s why I feel you’re not living in the real world, but some fantasy of your own creation.

        You talk about a contract. Can you show me the piece of paper where the wife signs agreeing to have sex on demand? I might have missed that document when I got married…

        Reply

      • In reply to john thames

        I’m sorry, but you haven’t shown why outdated ridiculous legal precepts from the past should govern our modern day human rights based approach to law making that has been implemented in all civilized countries on the planet.

        In other words, you’re continuing to live in a fantasy. Also, I’m banning your IP address and marking it as spam for refusing to comply with my requirements of a non vulgar discussion. Good bye.

        Reply

      • In reply to bhagwad

        You seem a kind of a dictator and unfortunately people like you who will go on hampering the Indian Societal and Family structure at large.
        When you say :As long as the wife doesn’t mind, what’s wrong with going to a prostitute?
        Have you tried discussing this with your wife?

        Reply

  4. I have read your posts before. I felt like commenting here because you seem to be going completely opposite to what you wrote earlier. Specially on the topic of free speech you wrote how it is so important and that insulting words cannot hurt anyone. You also wrote about the madness how many groups in India demand bans on works of art just because they find it offensive.

    But here you are doing the same regarding the person above. Of course it is wrong to be abusive and that you have the complete right to prevent such people and their comments from your personal blog. But in what capacity are you functioning as a moral policeman yourself by blocking the person’s IP for the entire blogging community?

    Do you mean that vulgar comments are hurtful? If you do, are you sure they will be hurtful to every blogger? Are you not acting like those fanatic groups who want certain things banned because they hurt sentiments? How can you speak for the entire blogging community?

    Please explain these double standards.

    Reply

    • In reply to Ansh

      Easy. In my opinion, this is a very common question on free speech. When I talk about censorship, I’m talking about governments banning stuff. The word “censorship” can only properly be applied to the removal of content by the government via legal action – not private individuals.

      In fact, I’ve written about this issue twice. Here and here.

      To put it simply, my blog is my home. My house. Viewers and commenters are guests on my blog. My house, my rules. If someone comes and pees all over my carpet, I can and will evict them. Mind you I’m not talking about bringing legal action against them or crying to the government for help. These individuals are perfectly free to express their views on their own blog, social media or whatever. But when they’re on my blog…in my space…I feel perfectly happy to throw them out of my private property.

      Removing someone’s comments from my blog is not censorship because these people can still spew their venom on their own sites which I have neither the desire nor inclination to prevent. Freedom of speech is of course subservient to property rights. And since my blog is my property, I feel perfectly at ease banning these guys.

      Finally I’m removing these comments not because I’m hurt. That would be a stupid reason and would reflect severe insecurity on my part. I remove them because I want to control the mood of my blog and not have to expose my readers to unintelligent rants that detract from a respectful mature conversation. Again, this is my choice and someone else might not mind this on their blog. Good for them and I’m passing no judgment and have no issues with such individuals.

      Reply

      • In reply to bhagwad

        Fair enough. But I dont think you completely read my entire comment where I specifically mentioned how it is your right and your choice to moderate content on your personal blog.

        But the point I was referring to was how you can claim the right to morally police what other bloggers should or should not have on their blog when you threatened that person of blacklisting/blocking his IP from the entire blogging community. Please refer to your comment #20031 made on December 5, 2013 at 1:35 pm. The last paragraph.

        How can you want to moderate the mood of other blogs?

        Reply

      • In reply to Ansh

        Oh yeah, I see that. The answer is that as a community of bloggers, we all participate in a system where we share information about spam, trolls, abusive people etc. It’s an “opt-in” feature, meaning that bloggers have to specifically choose to participate in it. And the overwhelming majority of bloggers do take part in it.

        Basically we more or less trust each other and when the system receives information about a blogger regarding a certain IP address, username, or email, it takes that into consideration when automatically filtering for spam.

        So it’s not government control, nor is it on by default. Private individuals have grouped together and made the choice to come together as a community to keep these kinds of people away from our blogs. The baseline is that all of us agree that certain behaviors are unacceptable (spamming, trolling etc etc) and we choose to rely on each other’s judgment. That is our right no?

        Reply

      • In reply to bhagwad

        Hahahaha… That was a good one. At least you can try to be humorous at times. Because surely you cannot be even a bit serious about that one.

        Which blogging community/group are you talking about? How have you taken for granted that every blogger in the world opts-in to this group of yours? Because as long as all the bloggers do not agree to be a part of this imaginary group, you dont have any right to speak on their behalf.

        Who actually decides the baselines for acceptable and unacceptable behaviour by people on blogs? What may be an abuse and therefore unacceptable for you might be totally normal for another blogger. So please describe how these basic guidelines are decided to be followed by all bloggers. Or have you already made a database of words which fall into the category of being vulgar?

        Shouldn’t each blogger decide on their own about whom to allow on their blogs rather than go by your personal opinion about people who comment on your blog? Shouldn’t one be the judge instead of relying on the judgement of others? Every blogger should be individually capable of doing that no?

        Reply

      • In reply to Ansh

        No of course I can’t be sure that every blogger in the world opts in to it. And for those who don’t, my choices and blacklists will mean nothing since they wouldn’t have installed the plug in or system I’m talking about. But like I said, most bloggers (at least on WordPress) participate.

        And sure, we can all blacklist individually. But those of us who participate in the system have agreed to trust each other’s judgment. Voluntarily. Do you feel we don’t have that right?

        Reply

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